01 June 2017

New snail species is hard to find, in more ways than one

One of today's highlights: helping a colleague photograph the holotype of an undescribed species!

I’m pleased that this species description is now out. The species in question was a little snail, now named Praticolella salina! The discovery is highlighted on the university’s home page! But the university’s article doesn’t tell you where to find the paper. Putting the name into Google Scholar didn’t help either. I finally found it because someone posted a shot of the article on Instagram:

Once I knew the journal, I went looking for its home page. I found it is still a print-only affair, with PDFs of the journal lagging three years behind the publication date.

Just remember that the next time anyone says of scientific publishing, “Everything is all online now.” No. No it is not.